First film made entirely on an iPhone – from script to premiere – is shown at Dutch film festival

Ferry Piekart (behind the camera) on the set of Goedemorgen, the first film to be made entirely on an iPhone. Photo: Marjolein Tap

Dutch writer Ferry Piekart makes 16-minute short on his iPhone and streams it from his device onto the big screen at a film festival

Dutch writer and journalist Ferry Piekart has created the first film to be made entirely on an iPhone – from script to premiere.

Goedemorgen (Good Morning) is a 16-minute short (see trailer below) and Piekart told smartmoviemaking.com that he restricted himself to his iPhone for every task in making the movie. That means the script was written on the iPhone, actors were cast using the iPhone and locations were scouted on the mobile device. Even the props were created on the iPhone, and of course the filming, editing and colour grading processes.

Goedemorgen, described by Piekart as a ‘comedy-drama’ is about a woman who wakes up in the morning to discover she isn’t sleeping in her own bed, or even in he own country anymore. It made its debut at the Film by the Sea Festival in Vlissingen, The Netherlands, where it was streamed from Piekart’s iPhone onto the big cinema screen.

“It was a hell of a job”, said Piekart. “People have been filming (short) films with an iPhone before – and a lot is possible on an iPhone… and a lot isn’t. Don’t get me started about missing features, like missing audio controls during filming. But it’s amazing you can actually create a movie on your smartphone, from start to finish. If my movie had a consciousness, it wouldn’t know about the existence of PC’s or Macs,” he said.

Audience reaction to the premiere was good, said Piekart: “most people were surprised this was all possible, and they also liked the story of the film, so that was good as well. Future plans for Good Morning is to take it to more festivals this year, including the iPhone Popup Film Festival if possible – and after that I will make it available online. May be I will release it through iTunes.”

Making a complete (short) film on a smartphone sounded like an incredible challenge and Piekart appears to have pulled it off and in doing so has shown us what is possible on a mobile device – with a lot of dedication.

“If you had asked me this a few weeks ago if I would do it again, I would have said ‘no way! - I want a BIG screen to edit on next time!’ But then I got a new iPhone (an iPhone 4S; I did everything on the iPhone 4 so far), and the camera is so much better, and the processor so much faster … rendering takes much less time, and the results are better … so I am tempted to do it again, even though the screen is still small. But may be I would opt for a shorter film … 16 minutes is a lot on a phone.”

With the imminent arrival of the new iPhone 5, we will no doubt see more films being shot and edited on the device, but hats off to Ferry Piekart for leading the way.